The city has has endured much through the years, but as cartoonist Tayo Fatunla grew up saying: ‘Eko oni baje’ or ‘Lagos cannot be destroyed’
Continue reading...Category Archives: Nigeria
‘We can’t end FGM without talking to men’ – in pictures
More than 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation and about 3 million more are at risk every year. Africa has the highest numbers, but its young people are fighting back
Photographs by the Girl Generation
Continue reading...Buhari and opposition leader blame each other for Nigerian election delay
The vote was rescheduled just five hours before polls were to open
Nigeria’s president and his main challenger have blamed each other for the last-minute postponement of the country’s election, delayed just five hours before polls were due to open.
Millions of Nigerians who had planned to vote woke up to the news on Saturday that the independent electoral commission (INEC) had deemed holding the poll “no longer feasible”. It will now be held on 23 February, INEC said.
Continue reading...Nigeria postpones election just hours before polls due to open
Electoral commission cites unspecified ‘challenges’ for vote that will now take place on 23 February
Nigeria’s electoral commission has delayed the presidential election until 23 February, making the announcement just five hours before polls were set to open on Saturday.
It cited unspecified “challenges” amid reports that voting materials had not been delivered to all parts of the country.
Continue reading...Nigerians set to go to polls in referendum on Buhari’s first term
Incumbent’s reputation marred by prolonged absence from country and lack of progress tackling corruption and insecurity
Voters in Africa’s biggest country by population go to the polls on Saturday to choose between the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari, his main rival Atiku Abubakar, and more than 70 other candidates.
Saturday’s election is seen as a referendum on Buhari’s first term, which has been marred by his prolonged absence due to illness, a weak economy, and the government’s failure to effectively tackle corruption and insecurity.
Continue reading...Ogoni widows testify at The Hague over Shell’s alleged complicity in killings
Four Nigerian women bring landmark case over state executions of nine activists in a military court
Four Nigerian women at the centre of a long-running legal battle against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell saw their historic case reach the Hague on Tuesday.
The company is accused of complicity in the state execution of nine Ogoni protesters and human right abuses dating back to 1993. The allegations concern the 1990s violent government crackdown in Ogoniland, in the oil-rich Niger delta region, where oil spills inflicted environmental damage on a huge scale.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Nigeria’s elections: 84m voters deserve better | Editorial
The presidential election has seen more mudslinging than serious debate. But vote-rigging and violence are the immediate concerns
Nigeria’s 84 million voters will go to the polls next weekend to give their verdict on Muhammadu Buhari. The country is Africa’s most populous, and by some measures has the largest economy on the continent. Nigeria celebrated Mr Buhari’s election in 2015 as not only a resounding rejection of the unpopular Goodluck Jonathan but also the first democratic transition since the return of civilian rule in 1999.
Unfortunately, the highlight of Mr Buhari’s presidency appears to have been the gaining of it. The economy struggles, and his pledges to curb rampant corruption have been applied to political opponents. Insecurity remains a pressing issue: notably, Boko Haram appears to be resurging despite the government’s repeated assurances that it has beaten the extremist group, and a spreading herder-farmer conflict has killed thousands. The president’s extended absence overseas, for medical treatment, prompted such persistent rumours of his death and replacement by a body double that he felt obliged to tell voters: “It’s the real me, I assure you.”
Continue reading...‘Normalised but not normal’: Nigerian women call out gropers and catcallers
Sexual harassment has long been rife in Nigeria’s bustling markets. Now women are mobilising in protest
Chiezugo Obii-Okpala knows that when she visits Yaba market in Lagos she’s going to be harassed. Whether she’s shopping for clothes or hurrying past the stalls that line the road to get on a bus, she will not be left alone.
“You’re dragged, called all sorts of names, harassed – and when you don’t give into that, you’re followed around,” says the 24-year-old pharmacist.
Continue reading...They say Boko Haram is gone. One mother’s terror tells another story…
Nigerian refugees are chased from homes as president stakes re-election bid on claims that Islamist group has been beaten
When Boko Haram stormed into Baga in a hail of gunfire on Boxing Day, Zara Abubakar was lying in bed, waiting for her two-week-old triplets, Maryam, Muhafat and Mohammed, to go to sleep so she could have a bath. Heart pounding, she shouted for her four other children playing in the yard to come in, covering the babies with her body. For hours they all lay inside, waiting for the battle to let up.
Then there was silence, followed by shouts of Allahu Akbar, and Baga mosque’s loudspeakers crackled into life. “Boko Haram made an announcement that they were not here for us but for the infidels [the military] and that they were now in charge,” Abubakar recounted, jogging one of the triplets in the crook of her elbow and another on her knee.
Continue reading...Arrests made in Sicily over suspected sex trafficking of girls from Nigeria
Authorities believe trafficking ring lured young women to Italy to force them into prostitution
Sicilian authorities have made a series of arrests after a suspected sex trafficking ring was believed to have forced at least 15 Nigerian girls into prostitution in Italy.
Among those arrested were two Nigerian women, Rita Ihama, 38, and Monica Onaigfohe, aged 20, who police believe organised the trafficking of the women from Libya to Italy. An Italian national, Giovanni Buscemi, was also arrested on suspicion of helping facilitate the trafficking and exploitation of the girls.
Continue reading...Thousands of Nigerian refugees fleeing Boko Haram forced back by Cameroon
UN voices alarm and urges Cameroon to keep its doors open after it denies entry to thousands fleeing unrest
The United Nations said on Friday it was “extremely alarmed” by the forced return by Cameroon of thousands of refugees to north-east Nigeria, where Boko Haram Islamists pose a continuing threat to civilians.
“This action was totally unexpected and puts lives of thousands of refugees at risk,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, said in a statement.
Continue reading...Thousands flee north-east Nigeria after devastating Boko Haram attack
More than 8,000 refugees cross border into Cameroon after Nigerian town of Rann is burned to the ground
Thousands of people have fled into Cameroon from north-east Nigeria following violent attacks by a faction of the militant group Boko Haram, which looted and destroyed large parts of a major town.
More than 8,000 refugees have crossed the border into Bodo after the attacks on the Nigerian town of Rann on Monday, in which at least 10 people are thought to have been killed. Homes and humanitarian organisations’ buildings were burned down.
Continue reading...Oyinkan Braithwaite’s serial-killer thriller: would you help your murderer sister?
The Nigerian author’s darkly comic debut novel, My Sister, the Serial Killer, has become a literary sensation. She explains her struggle with the moral ambiguity of her writing
When Oyinkan Braithwaite sent an early draft of her debut novel to a few friends, one of them told her it was the best thing she had ever written. “I was offended,” Braithwaite says, her voice heavy with irony. “I knew how I had written it.” She might not have thought much of it at the time, but this quick draft ended up unlocking deals with publishers in the UK and the US, as well as an option from the film company Working Title.
My Sister, the Serial Killer arrived in a feverish month, from a writer in a hurry and never looking back as she poured out a novel in an attempt to break a block. She shakes her head at the memory: “I was a bit mad during that period.”
Continue reading...Why Africa’s ageing leaders are keeping a close watch on DRC power struggle
The long-awaited and controversial election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could set the tone for the rest of the continent, with fears that democracy may be the loser
After a tumultous week, the streets of the cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are likely to be quiet on Sunday as congregations file into churches to hear priests and preachers call for the Lord’s blessing on a troubled land.
Few doubt that the DRC is at a critical moment. The long-delayed elections that were finally held on 30 December could still be a turning point, leading the resource-rich nation to a better future. Or they could send the vast central African country, which has not known a peaceful transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960, back into anarchy.
Continue reading...Oil tanker explosion kills Nigerians collecting leaking fuel
At least 12 dead and many seriously injured after crashed tanker explodes in Odukpani
At least 12 people have died in Nigeria after an overturned oil tanker exploded while they and others were gathering its leaking fuel, police and witnesses said.
“We have recovered 12 corpses and taken 22 persons with serious burns to hospital,” the police spokeswoman Irene Ugbo said. She said the blast occurred on Friday evening in Odukpani, Cross River state, in the south-east of the country. However, some residents put the death toll closer to 60.
Continue reading...NIS repatriates 75 illegal immigrants in Enugu
ENUGU State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, has repatriated 75 illegal immigrants arrested in parts of the state during the weekend. NIS Comptroller in the state, Madam Dora Amahian who disclosed this to newsmen yesterday in her office in Enugu said they were arrested in parts of the state during a raid operation carried out by operatives of the command.
Ekiti election: Snatch ballot box, lose your hand; run with it, lose your legs -Police
Ekiti election: Fear, anxiety, intrigues as Ekiti elects governor today 4,390 soldiers; 30,000 policemen deployed No security for political office holders Ekiti election: Today, 667,064 eligible voters who have collected their PVCs out of 913, 334 registered voters are expected to file out across the 2,195 polling units spread across 177 wards in 16 local government areas of Ekiti State to elect a governor who would be saddled with the mandate of running the state for the next four years. Adequate security has been assured as no fewer than 4, 390 combined forces of soldiers and other paramilitary personnel will be deployed to complement the 30,000 policemen who have been drafted to Ekiti to monitor the election.
Fashola would take over from Buhari in 2019, says Prophet Fakolade
By Luminous Jannamike ABUJA - An Abuja-based cleric, Prophet George Fakolade, the leader of Divine Intelligence Ministry, has prophesied that President Muhammadu Buhari would leave office as President in 2019, as Nigerians would elect the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, to replace him. Fakolade, who made this prophecy known in a statement issued to journalists during the weekend, also said Mr. Fashola would make his cabinet ready before assumption of office, step-up the fight against corruption, spare no sacred cows, and heal the nation of the many maladies plaguing it.
New Medical Drama Misdiagnoses Immigration: ‘We’re Shutting Our Doors’
Fox's medical drama The Resident premiered on January 22 with their pilot episode in which we get to know the doctors at the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Chief of Surgery Dr. Randolph Bell is highly respected but, it turns out, it kind of a a jerk, and has an interesting take on the state of American immigration.
Why Trump’s remark about Nigerians and ‘huts’ is so appalling
The well-educated and well-spoken African responded: "Yes, it is true, and the U.S. Embassy is the biggest hut next to my hut!" It was funny then, until my friend was asked that same question at her school in Washington. President Trump's reported statement that when Nigerians see America they never want to go back to "their huts" is downright appalling.